


heavy heart to carry

by Handful_of_Silence



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Civil War, Civil War (Marvel), Families of Choice, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 04:04:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4085965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Handful_of_Silence/pseuds/Handful_of_Silence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This is bigger than just Daredevil," Foggy had told him, late one night, before the fighting started. "This is about what’s right, what's fair, and sometimes it’s not always going to be that clear.”</p>
<p>The trouble with fights, Matt quickly learns, is that sooner or later, one side starts to play dirty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	heavy heart to carry

The old SHIELD safehouse that they’re using as a base of operations stinks of chrome. It’s never been used in any official capacity, and Steve says that when they first arrived, their first job was taking the dust-sheets off everything, but it still feels too much like Avengers Tower for Matt to feel anything but on edge. His senses are jittery, pin-prick sensitive. He takes in the near constant hum of electrical current and computer fans, the squeak of rubber on tiled floor, the undercurrent of cleaning fluid and polish. There is noise, whatever the hour, unregistered suits taking it in shifts and in groups, wary of cape-killers and pick-up squads. There are a hundred hushed conversations, terse, caffeine-fuelled and frazzled, full of military jargon and strategic manoeuvres.  It’s miles away from the rolling grumble of Hell’s Kitchen; the city-smell of bodies and dirt and grime and rats. New tarmac and road-works.

The fragile notes of a tasteful perfume, lingering like dust-motes around an open office space; the recollection of a greasy chicken chop suey, the sauce splattered on clothing that hasn’t quite come out in the wash. Someone humming  a jaunty show tune under their breath.

This place, it’s so far removed from home it almost hurts.

“You doing alright there, Matthew?”

It’s Steve. In the doorway, he takes up just enough space to be impressive, not intimidating. The blood thrumming through him, river-flow fast, sounds like nothing Matt’s ever heard before.

He should have heard him coming. Chastises himself in his head. Now is not the time to be dropping his guard.

He raises his head towards the sound. Steve sounds tired, concerned. Skirting the edges of sleeplessness. They all do these days.

“I know it’s not much,” Steve says, and he flickers amongst Matt’s senses, implying he most likely gestured to the small bunker around them. “But it’s the best we could drum up. Under the circumstances.”

“It’s fine,” Matt says, and he means it. He hadn’t been expecting luxury when he signed on for this after all. He’s take off his cowl – there’s no point in hiding his face any more, not now – and set it down on the bed next to him. The sheets are sandpaper scratchy, but it would be ridiculous at this point to expect silk. He’s on the run. He will manage. “Thank you.”

Steve pauses, and there is a stretch of fabric over muscle as though he’s turning to leave. There are so many things to see to right about now. Matt was one of the first to arrive here, even before the bill took legal effect.  As of three hours ago, he’s breaking the law just putting on the mask. More so than he was anyway.

More suits are coming in by the hour. Arriving tired, hunted, run ragged with their own worries. Pledging their support, needing a place to lay low. Readying for war.

Matt desperately hopes it doesn’t come to that.

“What’s in your hand?” Steve asks quietly, sounding curious. Matt frowns. He’d forgotten.

“It’s… it’s nothing,” he lies. Running his fingers carefully over stubby plastic ridges, the crest of spines, the half-arc of a club tail. _Stegosaurus,_ his mind supplies. “My friend gave it to me. Before I left.”

He pats the space next to him, tapping his hand on the rucksack he’s half-way through unpacking. He found the toy  wrapped in socks and placed beneath a basic first aid kit and a spare set of clothes, and he’d had to sit down for a moment. “He packed me a bag.” Matt tries not to sound as broken as he feels when he says this, and thinks he managed it. He just sounds exhausted instead. “He knew I was going to go, even before I told him, and he packed me a bag.” He snorts a laugh he doesn’t quite feel. “He filled the whole front pocket with granola bars. Think he’s worried I’ll starve.”

They had hugged far too tightly. Foggy’s voice had been wet.

“I’ll tell Karen that you’re safe,” he’d promised, and Matt had _hated_ that it had come to this. Skulking away at dawn. Abandoning his friends

It had felt like taking the road to Calvary, walking away.

“Sounds like a good friend,” Steve replies softly.

Steve never knew Foggy, or Karen. Even when Daredevil and the Avengers sometimes worked together, back when the Avengers were a thing, Matt had been unforthcoming about his identity. Given them a first name and nothing else to work with. He’d trusted them all as much as he trusted anyone that wasn’t his family. Only now Stark’s forces are locking up unregistered suits, are making noise to arrest those who may be aiding and abetting such criminal activity. Matt keeps worrying that giving them a name might have been too much to go on.

“He is,” Matt agrees. Pressing the dinosaur into his palm a little harder.

“This will work out alright,” Cap promises after a short silence. “Public opinion might be with Stark now, but that will change. People will see, sooner or later, what registration will cost them. This can’t last forever. You’ll be able to go back to your normal life then.”

Matt nods wordlessly.

Home. He likes the sound of that.

A drafty office, the air stained with stale coffee and subtle perfume. The rustle of papers, the slide of files on files, the tremble of the telephone a second before it rings. Someone humming in the corner under their breath.

He’d like to believe he can go home soon.

\--

Danny and Luke are here with him, and that’s something. It makes him feel like he’s not edging out onto this precipice alone.

Danny is shaking his head. The sound of his hair brushing against the nape of his neck is a familiar one. They’re gathered in one of the smaller conference areas, bone-tired from patrols, feeling sweaty and constrained even out of costume. The three of them are watching the news, and Danny is narrating what’s happening on screen to Matt. Telling him how they’re taking another armoured tank of unregistered suits away. Like everything they ever did meant nothing. Like everything they _stood for_ means nothing.

“There is no honour in this,” he says angrily. “None.”

“Time was, Avengers never cared about anything that wasn’t their own problems,” Luke growls from next to Matt. “Only got involved in Sokovia when Stark’s metal-dog got outta hand. Where were they when Genosha happened, huh? Or when those aliens destroyed half of New York? Don’t remember them being involved in the clean-up.”

Matt thinks of the money and grants the government and SHIELD had thrown at Hell’s Kitchen. How firms like Union Allied and men like Fisk had prospered.

“You turn people in suits into cops,” he had argued with Foggy when they had sat in Foggy’s apartment, drinking beer and listening to the bill being discussed on the late night news. “How is that going to help anyone? You get super-enhanced individuals and put them in teams, and place them strategically around all fifty states… Of course you’re going to be safer from extra-dimensional aliens or whatever, but you’d get used to thinking too big. Focusing on the world-ending catastrophes and missing the smaller things. Letting them slide. Letting men like Fisk thrive.”

“The act would stop things like Stamford happening again,” Foggy had said thoughtfully. He’d offered a bag of chemical-tainted snacks that were meant to taste like cheese dust, and Matt had shaken his head, wrinkling his nose. “Stop a bunch of kids who don’t know what they’re doing causing trouble. Hurting people, because there aren’t safety measures in place, because they aren’t accountable for their actions.”

Matt had angled his head towards Foggy, frowning.

“No-one ever bothered about Hell’s Kitchen until I put on the mask,” he had bitten out. He’d tried not to sound annoyed, because Foggy was making valid points, but he didn’t _understand_ what something like this would cost. He wanted Foggy to understand.  “The Avengers never came rushing to help people like Elena, or Ben. Stamford was a stupid, terrible accident, and it shouldn’t have happened, and you’re right, there should be measures in place to protect people, but not with what this costs. You remember civil liberties, don’t you? You think any of us could have normal lives if people knew? Stark puts a good spin on it, but that’s what we’re going to lose. It’s the people we care about who will get hurt, the people _caught_ in the middle, Foggy…”

“Hey, man,” Foggy had said. Nudging his arm with his elbow. “I agree with you, you dork. No need to get in a tizzy.”

Matt had blinked, confused.

“Then why were you saying all that stuff…?”

“Someone’s got to play Devil’s Advocate,” Foggy had taken a swig of beer, the bottle near-empty from the sloshing sound. His voice was suddenly a little more serious. “This isn’t going to go away, and you’ve got to make sure that whatever side you come down on, you’re doing it for the right reasons. This is bigger than just Daredevil. This is about what’s right, and sometimes it’s not always that clear.”

“No one ever bothered about Hell’s Kitchen until I put on the mask,” Matt repeats quietly to his team-mates, as they sit there listening to the television. “No-one was helping those people.”

He thinks about a lawyer’s office, with a proud sign set up outside the door. That was helping people too. It just wasn’t enough sometimes.

He wonders if it’s running ok. If they’ve got cases, if they’ve got enough money to keep the lights on. If Karen’s drinking too much coffee, getting enough sleep. If Foggy’s working too hard, worrying too much.

He listens as on the screen, the restraint units take away three masks, and wonders what his friends would think if they saw him get himself caught on screen. Hope they’d understand why he did it, in the end.

\--

That’s the trouble with fights, Jessica had told him quietly as they kept an eye on the escalating skirmishes, the close calls, the casualties on both sides. Sooner or later, it goes on long enough and one side decides to start playing dirty.

“Matt! Matt!” Danny’s calling him to the computer screen, breathless, but Matt’s already heard the start of the report from another room, and is stumbling into the main conference room where a small group of suits have gathered.

Jessica is muttering _this is bullshit;_ Sam Wilson sounds angry, _that just ain’t right man, it ain’t right_. 

Matt is trying to _listen._

“...the recently released details that we have coming in are thought to be a strategic move by pro-registration forces designed to put increasing pressure on the anti-registration figures still in hiding. We cannot currently verify the validity of these details, but amongst the identities which have currently been exposed, with more promised to follow, are Frank Castle, former military veteran and better known by his nickname The Punisher, and Matthew Murdock, a Clinton-based defence attorney, dubbed by the media as Daredevil…”

Matt stops listening then. It’s like all the breath has been knocked out of him.

“Matt?” It’s Danny. There’s a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he doesn’t push it away. Matt gets the impression that people are turning around to stare at him. The world’s gone too quiet.

“ _Foggy,_ ” he says to Danny, knowing he’ll understand. “ _Karen._ _”_

Danny’s met them both. Foggy had told Matt to invite him round for their irregular nachos and  movie nights (“I don’t _care_ if he’s Iron Fist, if he’s never seen Die Hard you’ve got to get him to come round!). Danny had come round in civilian gear, picked all the cheesy nachos off the top and smooth-talked Karen, and they’d all ended up playing drinking games with the pack of playing cards Foggy’d had since college. Danny had never said, but he’d appreciated the invite. The normalcy of it.

Matt whirls round to Steve, searching out his too-fast heartbeat in amongst the assembled crowd. He’s standing next to the Winter Solider, tensed and stock-stilled by his elbow.

“My family,” he says desperately. “They’re in danger… people know who I am now, they…”

“We’ll get them to a safe house,” Steve promises. “Jane Foster set it up, not long back. It hasn’t been compromised.”

Matt nods dumbly.  “I need to…. call them… I….”

Something is being pushed into his hand, hard and plastic. A burner phone.

He hears someone say _Stay with him, Danny. Make sure he’s ok_ as Matt leaves the conference room, his fingers trembling as he punches in Foggy’s number, feeling out the layout of the buttons first.

It rings for a long time before it goes to answerphone.

He tries Karen’s. Nothing. Foggy’s again. Nothing. He leaves message after message, and there is never any reply.

He screams with rage, and he doesn’t realise he’s slammed his hands against the wall until Danny is holding him firmly by the wrists.

“Come on now. Deep breath, Murdock, come on.”

“This was never their war!” he says, and he should be stronger than this, should be able to hold it together, but no-one is answering, no-one is picking up and anything could be happening, and he’s stuck _here._ “This wasn’t their fight.”

Danny doesn’t have anything to say in return.

\--

Matt wants to suit up immediately and make his way to Hell’s Kitchen, an itch in his bones, fire in his blood, but Luke stops him.

“Me an’ Danny are headin’ out that way on patrol,” he says firmly. “We’ll handle it. Those cape-killers gonna be looking out for you most of all. This is what they wanted, man. Draw you out. Make you mad.”

Matt argues fiercely, because he is _furious,_ that they’ve taken his privacy like it wasn’t something he’s fought tooth-and-nail to keep, that they’ve taken away from him the small business he’s so proud of. Nelson & Murdock  probably have its assets seized, it’s offices closed.

That was _his._ His, Foggy’s and Karen’s.

_You really think anyone would believe that I didn’t know what you were doing? That Karen didn’t know?_

Matt feels sick. A live-wire under his skin.

Luke doesn’t budge.

He sits in his tiny bunker that smells of chrome and plastic and not of drying ink and treated wooden furniture, that sounds like electrical current and not of a juddering fax machine on its last legs, nor the sound of someone humming. He calls Karen and Foggy again and again.

He’s so caught up that he doesn’t initially notice the voice on the other end.

“Hello? Hello?”

“Karen?” Relief crashes through him and he grips the phone tightly. “Karen, it’s Matt.”

“ _Matt._ Matt, thank God. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, just… Are you safe?”

He has the sudden irrational fear that she’s calling from a jail cell.

“Yeah,  Foggy called me this morning. Told me not to come in and to pack some spare clothes. Apparently Brett called him, tipped him off about a raid before your name even hit the headlines.”

“A raid?” Matt croaks out.

There is a sad pause.

“Th-there’s a warrant out for our arrest,” Karen finally says quietly.

“But are you _safe?_ ” Matt stresses. “Where are you?”

“Foggy gave me the address of one of his cousins. The bricklayer one. I’m at theirs now.”

“Ok,” Matt says. He’s trying to focus on breathing again. “Ok, Karen, just… stay right there. Don’t pick up any other calls you don’t recognise. Danny and Luke are on their way, they’ll take you both somewhere safe.”  He should be there. He should be protecting what he cares about. “Is Foggy with you? Can I talk to him?”

“He’s… I haven’t heard from him since this morning.” Karen replies. Sounding scared.

Foggy’s probably at another one of his cousins, Matt thinks desperately. The one with the hardware store, or the one who works shift-jobs cleaning, or the sous-chef one. Foggy’s not stupid, he knows it’s not safe for any of them now.

He’ll be fine. He’ll be fine.

Matt contacts Danny and Luke, and tells them Karen’s address. He tries to keep the shake out of his voice. When they come back, it’s hours later than they should have been, and Matt feels worn down, and cut-up. Today has been too much.

They’ve dropped Karen off with Jane Foster, they tell him. She’ll be safe there. Matt wishes he could have seen her. Told her how sorry he is, about all of this.

“What’s it like out there?” he asks tentatively.

Danny huffs out a breath. “It’s… it’s not great. The pro-reg lot, they really did a number on your offices. Broken glass, graffiti, that sort of thing. But Matt, you should have seen…Before we left, there was a crowd of locals. All gathered round. Keeping people away, stopping anyone else from tearing up the place.  They’re really protective of you, man. Looks like all those years, you’ve made a name for yourself.”

Matt clenches his eyes shut, feeling like he’s about to cry. He doesn’t deserve their loyalty. None of it. It’ll get them killed.

Luke plants down something heavy with a thump. There is the rustle of paper inside a plastic bag.

“Looks like your friends have been busy,” Luke says. “Karen told us that her and Nelson had been working on this while you were gone. Hid it away in a luggage storage place in case things went sour. Your friends are smarter than you are, Murdock.”

“What are they?” Matt asks. Feeling out sheathes of paper, files, printed sheets. There’s pages and pages of it all.

“Information,” Danny says. “They’ve got together a list of the known ex-cons the pro-reg lot have on payroll. Tax reports and discrepancies, where money’s been invested. From that, they’ve been making a headway with locating pro-reg safehouses, weapons caches. This – this is something, Matt. This is really something. We can work with this, figure out their bases, their numbers. This could really give us an advantage.”

_Oh you idiots,_ Matt thinks, knowing he shouldn’t be surprised, not after all this time. _You brave brave idiots._

Matt’s fingers brush something glossy, like a credit card.

“What’s this?”

Danny makes a low whistle. Luke chuckles.

“You’re lucky your friends are on the right side of the law, Murdock. These are something.”

“What are they?”

“Fake ID’s. They look pretty legit too, so long as no-one was looking too hard.” There’s a shuffling sound. “There’s one for you, Page, Nelson… Hell, they’ve even made up ones for me, Jess and Danny. Don’t know where they got this picture from, Christ, that ‘fro never worked, did it…”

There’s a sinking realisation settling low at the bottom of Matt’s chest.

Foggy would have picked his ID up, if he’d been intending on going underground. Everyone knows Matt’s name now, it doesn’t take more than a google search to figure out Foggy’s.

Maybe there wasn’t enough time for him to go to the storage place.

Maybe he couldn’t get there.

There’s too many maybes and not enough answers.

“And Foggy?” Matt asks. “You hear anything about him?”

“Sorry man,” Luke says softly. “Ain’t no sign of him.” A solid hand clamps down on his shoulder in solidarity. “That’s gotta be good though, right? Means he ain’t been caught. Those bastard’s would have plastered that shit all over the news. Try and draw you out.”

That isn’t enough of a hope. Not nearly enough.

It’s the only thing Matt’s got.

\--

Foggy manages to stay off the radar for six months before the pro-registration forces bust a hideout a hundred miles from the Canadian border. Apparently he’s been involved in smuggling suits over to the other side, setting them up with new lives, new identities. Giving them a second chance. It’s so very Foggy, Matt thinks.

Preliminary reports say that he’s been charged with aiding and abetting, forgery and falsification of documents, passing on classified documents, and resisting arrest. Matt can’t quite imagine the latter, but according to Luke, from the security footage Jess managed to pull, his scrappy friend gives one of the restraint officers a right shiner before they manage to get him in cuffs.

Matt feels so proud, and so very frightened.

He’s worried Foggy won’t even make it to trial. Stark’s forces aren’t out to kill anyone, no matter how many instances of collateral damage there are, but everyone knows the pro-reg forces have bulked up their numbers with so-called reformed criminals. Bullseye is amongst them. He knows Matt’s name now. He knows exactly what will hurt him, and he’s been waiting long enough for his revenge.

Matt can’t stay here. Not any longer.

\--

The plan is reckless. No-one’s come out of pro-reg custody yet, and they’ve never had enough manpower or volunteers to mount an assault from the inside. There’s too many variables, and not enough room for back-up options. It’s far more likely that Matt’s signed his own arrest warrant on a fool’s hope that he can make a difference this way.

That’s what Steve had said, when Matt had gone to him and told him he wanted to spring all the currently incarcerated suits out of Ryker’s island. It’s currently acting as a preliminary holding facility, where they take all those involved in the resistance before they can process them into separate specially-made cells. There is never any talk of trial, or due process, or legal rights. Foggy would throw the book at them, if he could.

Matt had stood his ground, and Jessica had called him a moron.

They’d let him go anyway.

Stark’s trying to talk to him, as they make their way through hallways, card-access doors, thick iron gates. He sounds tired. His shirt is freshly cleaned, but he hasn’t changed his suit in a few days. He smells like too-strong coffee, taken without milk or sugar. Matt doesn’t not feel sorry for him. Not anymore.

Stark is explaining that he never wanted this, that this wasn’t the way it was meant to turn out. That all he has to do is sign a form, and commit to only putting on the mask in employment of the government, and he can go home. Legitimate. Appreciated. He can get his life back.

Matt wants more than anything to go home.

_This is bigger than just Daredevil,_ Foggy had told him. _This is about what is right._

Matt stays silent. Straining out with his senses. Listening for the weak points in the wall that will crumble with the right amount of force, the places where there’s too much give in the plaster, where the hinges on the gates have weakened.

They reach the cell set aside for him. It’s not too cramped from the echoing sound, but a prison is a prison. It doesn’t matter. Matt’s not planning on staying too long.

“What do you say, Matt?” Stark says. “Come on, I’m trying to help. Work with me here.”

Matt’s had his hands clenched into fists since they picked him up. He focuses on Stark’s outline intently, and he hears Stark shift uncomfortably, because he knows that he doesn’t have to meet Stark’s eyes for him to know he’s staring him down. Steadily, he holds out his bound hands and drops the coin he’s been holding into Stark’s palm.

Stark frowns. “A silver dollar? I don’t understand?”

“It’s to go with the other thirty pieces,” Matt says. It’s the first thing he’s said since they caught him. “Enjoy your blood money.”

Stark says nothing as they leave him in his cell. Matt doesn’t expect him to.

He waits until he hears the sound of footsteps fading away. Stark lingers for a moment, before he sighs softly, and follows. Matt stands up. Flexes. Stretches out in readiness.

It takes him three minutes to get out of the cuffs. He stands perfectly still at the centre of the room, and listens. Beyond walls and locks and through a hundred rooms filled with restless bodies.

Matt smiles again, and it’s vicious.

Time to start a riot.

**Author's Note:**

> Daredevil prompt: "You ever stop to think about what would happen if you went to jail, or worse? You really think anyone would believe that I didn't know what you were doing.That Karen didn't know?"
> 
> Sometime in the future, Matt's identity gets outed, and he has to go into hiding. 
> 
> For Foggy and Karen, it's not that simple.


End file.
